In the art of air conditioning, one well-known device is the monoblock (or as it is commonly spelled in Europe “monobloc”). The monoblock air conditioner is a single packaged mobile or portable air conditioner (the terms “mobile” and “portable” being used interchangeably). A typical monoblock air conditioner is a one piece unit with a flexible discharge hose, and does not have a remote condenser.
As is well known in the art, air conditioners typically include an evaporator and condenser. The evaporator provides cooling by evaporating a refrigerant from a liquid to a gas, which causes heat within the room air to be transferred to the refrigerant. The heated refrigerant is condensed in the condenser, wherein the heat absorbed by the refrigerant is rejected or transferred to some other medium, such as forced air. Indeed in most normal air conditioners, the condenser is cooled by the outdoors air and/or a fan. In a portable monoblock one-ducted air conditioner, the condenser is typically cooled by air which has been sucked from the air conditioned room. This warmed air is typically evacuated by a flexible hose to the outdoors.
In normal air conditioners, any water condensed in the evaporator may be drained by a flexible hose, wherein the water simply flows by gravity to a drain. However, this is not the case when it comes to portable monoblock air conditioners. In one-ducted monoblock air conditioners, because of its portable nature, there is no friendly way of draining the water by gravitation to the drain.
One problem common to all air conditioners is the rising cost of electrical energy. It is desirable to reduce the cost of cooling by making the air conditioners more efficient. One way of increasing the efficiency is to improve the cooling of the hot refrigerant gas in the condenser. Most condensers are air cooled and thus depend on forced ambient air for the necessary cooling air. When the ambient air temperature rises, the efficiency of the air conditioner falls and when the air conditioner is needed most, it is least efficient. One method which has been tried is to spray water onto the condenser coils in order that the water, which usually is below the ambient air temperature, may cool the coils by taking in the heat and with some evaporation, taking the caloric value of the heat of vaporization of water from the heated refrigerant.
Reference is now made to FIG. 1, which illustrates a prior art portable, monoblock, one-ducted air conditioner 10. The air conditioner 10 includes an evaporator 12 which sits above a condenser 14. An upper pan 16 is provided with holes for dripping condensed water from the evaporator 12 over the condenser 14. The condensate splashes over the hot condenser 14 and evaporates, which cools the condenser 14 and thus minimizes the amount of air that must be sucked from the room to cool the condenser 14.
However, in prior art portable, monoblock, one-ducted air conditioners, this technique is not efficient. In prior art monoblock air conditioners, the condenser 14 does not evaporate the condensed water at the same rate the condensate is produced in the evaporator 12. Accordingly, a lower pan 18 is provided below the condenser 14 to collect any water that has not evaporated over the condenser coils. A pump is provided to pump the non-evaporated water back up to the upper pan 16 for re-dripping over the condenser 14.